nagoya, week one!

I'm updating right now from an internet cafe, on probably the oldest and slowest computer they have (which explains why nobody was using it when we came in). From now on if I come here I'll bring my own laptop, though carrying it all the way here on the bus/train will probably be a pain. Also please excuse the lack of pictures, since I am on a public computer and don't have a flash drive or anything with me. :/

Anyway, the past few days have been pretty fun - we've had more orientation and today we registered for classes. It was a paper process, though, and apparently there's no way to know how much space is in classes with limited registration until we actually go to the classes, so my schedule may change. If I can stay in everything I registered for, though, that'll be great: Japanese Linguistics II, Japanese culture (which is really more like sociolinguistics, as its full name is Japanese Culture: Language and Society in Japan), Observation and Analysis of Japanese Language Activities (which is an open class with Japanese students), and calligraphy. This is in addition to the Japanese language class, which is every day for three hours a day (I'm probably going to have issues staying awake). I tested into Japanese 600, which is one level higher than I expected and also the hardest Japanese class offered this semester. I'm kind of scared to take it, since it seems really hard, but on the other hand I want to stay in it, since it'll probably be great for improving my Japanese. On the first day of classes (two days from now!) everybody takes another, probably more detailed test to see if they were put in the right class, so I'll be studying hard to try and learn all the Japanese 500 material before then. It's not as bad as it sounds, since we actually did a lot of the grammar, but that's 200 new kanji that I'm supposed to know, which could be bad. Anyway, we'll see. :)

So on Saturday I went to Sakae with a few other international students. Sakae is a pretty big station (and unfortunately not on my commuter pass) and has lots of shops and things to admire. First we wandered into a Maruzen bookstore, then decided to get lunch. We settled on (basically) the first one we saw, and then realized that we couldn't read the menu, because useful kanji like food names is not what we study at school. So we ordered by pointing, and I think I was one of the few people who actually knew what I was ordering (gyouza), so it was an interesting lunch. Then we walked through this underground mall to find the Oasis 21 center, which is a very strange-looking building with shops underneath. We went up to the top, which was pretty cool - it had a very shallow pond with a glass bottom, so you could see down below (and from the bottom it made cool ripple shadows), then wandered around some more shops. After that we wanted to go up the TV tower, but it cost 600 yen and we decided to just walk around instead, because there was some sort of festival going on. I still don't really know what it was for, but we sat and watched lots of Japanese kids dance hip-hop (it was a dance school and every class did a dance). It was pretty awesome, and also amusing because I'm sure they had no idea what the lyrics to the songs meant. There were some really little kids (maybe 6 or 7) who were really adorable (and good dancers).

On Sunday I went on a yukata hunt with my host mom, but apparently they are no longer selling them. :( On the flip side, I did get a skirt and leggings for 190 yen each, plus I tried takoyaki for the first time, which was pretty good. And then yesterday after orientation I met some new people and joined them for karaoke (actually I was only there for about 10 minutes) and then wandered around Yagoto station, which was pretty fun. Today we had a campus tour and welcome party, where I actually met and talked to some Japanese students, which was nice. We also made plans to go to Sakae later tonight, so that should be fun, too! It looks like it's shaping up to be a good semester, with interesting classes and fun people, so I'm excited! :)